seriously.

All these awful ideas we have about "gender," men trying to be "masculine" and women trying to be "feminine"--they're unhealthy, unnatural, and in the past few days I've seen people really hurting because of it. Gender, the system of ideas that we've built up around biological sex, is the cause of a lot of pain. And it's easy to just tell people "don't worry about society! Be who you are!" but we all have to interact in a society that tells people how to be and judges them when they do not conform.

Why can't we just value the things associated with masculinity and femininity, no matter who does them? Why do things culturally associated with women, such as caring and nurturing and emotionality, have to be devalued when they are done by women and seen as suspect when done by men? Of course, a lot of it has to do with power, etc. But I guess I'd much rather complain about it than think about ways of challenging it. Ideas?

In gender-related news: today I find out if I am going to have a niece or a nephew, and I am excited! Actually, that's not so much "gender"-related as "sex"-related. Luckily for my niece or nephew at the moment, he or she has not confronted gender as an ideology yet and can just be who she or he is.